Worcester Business Journal

8 Worcester Business Journal | November 17, 2025 | wbjournal.com Q&A with a genius A couple months ago, Margaret Wickens Pearce received a string of calls her phone kept flagging as potential spam. Aer swatting a number away to voicemail, Pearce finally received a text from someone from the Chicago-based MacArthur Foundation, asking her to speak on the phone. Shortly aer hopping on the call, Pearce was told she was one of the 22 recipients of the 2025 MacArthur Fellowship, also known as the genius grant: an $800,000 no-strings-attached award used to support individuals working on innovative and groundbreaking projects. MacArthur Foundation announced the 2025 recipients on Oct. 8. Pearce, a cartographer, graduated with her master's degree from Clark University in Worcester in 1995 and with her PhD in 1998. A Citizen Potawatomi Nation tribal member, today she owns Studio 1:1 in Maine, creating maps that highlight Indige- nous land: telling stories of travel, collaboration, erased narratives, and stewardship. When do you first remember being drawn to the profession of cartogra- phy? I wouldn't say I was drawn to it as a profession. I was excited by maps, and it took me a long time to understand what that might mean in terms of making a living. I started getting interested in the his- tory of science when I was in college, and I was so captivated by learning about how cultures set up their maths and how they measured and what the history of mathematics was. I took a cartography class at the University of Massachusetts. And literally, the first week I was like, "I don't know what's happening, but this is totally for me." I loved that it was about measure but also about narrative. I loved that it allowed me to create compositions about different parts of the world. I applied to Clark and was accept- ed. en that really got started for me to learn all about cartographic design, map history, geography, the history of geography, all of those interrelated fields that really helped me find my way as a cartographer. How did studying at Clark University affect your work as a cartographer? It had a huge influence on my life as a cartographer. Geography is a very interdisciplinary field; it includes the arts and humanities and sciences. I was exposed to so much scholarship across those fields, as well as learning from my peers. at exposure has allowed me to become very intellectually independent since then, because I'm not afraid to read scientific articles. I'm not afraid to dig into artistic scholarship, because I had the opportunity to be exposed to a lot of that as a graduate student. How did studying in Western and Central Massachusetts impact your ca- reer and your perception of Indigenous and colonial mapping? I did my dissertation on how Native people in Western Connecticut and colonists mapped together during the 17th and 18th centuries. I had the opportunity to be part of a national traveling exhibition called the Amerin- dian and Inuit maps exhibition project. I started reading all of those early land records from the Connecticut Val- ley, from the region around Worcester and Webster, and learning about all of the exchanges that were going on between the 1670s and 1690s when there was just a ton of mapping going on in the town clerk's offices. What amazed me is I could walk into all of those small towns in Central Mass. and just walk into the town clerk's office and say, "I'm just looking for the land deeds from 1662," and there they were. I could throw them on the photocopier. Studying those topics while being in Central Mass. really opened my eyes to Margaret Wickens Pearce Title: Cartographer, owner of Studio 1:1 Founded: 2015 Age: 60 Hometown: Born in Providence; childhood mostly but not entirely in Rochester, NY; has lived in 11 states. Residence: Rockland, Maine Clark alum Margaret Wickens Pearce was named a 2025 MacArthur fellow in October "If we retell Indigenous stories away from their places, they lose a lot of their meaning. But if we can tell them in place ... those meanings become whole," said Margaret Wickens Pearce. PHOTO | © JOHN D. AND CATHERINE T. MACARTHUR FOUNDATION– USED WITH PERMISSION

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